What does California get for stratospheric salaries?

Stratospheric.

That’s one word to describe the taxpayer-funded paychecks of select public employees in California.

Official state job listings show base salaries for some workers, including pension fund bosses and prison psychiatrists, of up to $47,000 a month — or $564,000 a year — The California Post reported on Thursday.

While fat salaries billed to California taxpayers are nothing new, the numbers remain eye-popping.

And in a state that long has delivered poor value for tax dollars, it’s fair to ask: What are are taxpayers getting for these lavish outlays?

No one seems to know.

Yes, the state should offer competitive wages to attract top talent.

But Californians deserve to know what exactly those wages are buying.

Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters

Why do pension fund leaders and prison health care providers command top dollar when both programs are so poorly run?

Where are the benchmarks and accountability for a slew of salaries several multiples higher than California’s median household income of about $100,000 annually?

And how can Californians best gauge how well these leaders are performing?

Consider:

An opening for a prison health care exec in Sacramento County shows a pay range of $33,740 to $42,090 per month.

A job as chief psychiatrist at a state prison in Delano will pay between $34,420 and $35,280 a month.

And the highest-paid opportunity, for now, is a chief investment officer at the state’s retirement fund, CalPERS. This hire will collect base pay of up to $47,208 a month — plus, perhaps, bonus incentives.

Meanwhile, a look at the Transparent California website shows some current state workers whose pay packages climb near seven figures.

And the state isn’t even measuring whether its employees are doing a good job.

A recent exposé by LAist showed that California spent billions of dollars on “free” public transitional kindergarten (TK) — without any plans to measure outcomes.

Are children learning? Are they eating better? Are they happier?

We don’t know. We don’t even know if parents are satisfied.

We don’t measure progress. We just spend money. That’s all that matters.

That’s how we have landed in a structural deficit, year after year.

The state owes taxpayers better.